With contract negotiations at an impasse, Washington Commanders star wide receiver Terry McLaurin requested to be traded, team and league sources told The Athletic.
McLaurin, 29, has been seeking a new deal with the team for months, believing the value of his current contract doesn’t match his value to the team. He signed a three-year deal in 2022 worth an average of $22.79 million annually, which ranks 18th among current receivers. This year is the last on his contract and comes with a $15.5 million base salary.
Negotiations on a third contract with the Commanders have become increasingly tenuous, prompting McLaurin to skip minicamp in June and the start of training camp earlier this month, leading to possible fines and lost bonuses totaling more than $800,000. Days before Commanders veterans were required to report to camp, McLaurin spoke with reporters for more than 30 minutes following a commercial shoot in Maryland about the lack of progress toward a new deal, saying he was “pretty frustrated” and “disappointed.”
McLaurin ended his training camp holdout on Sunday and reported to the team, but he was placed on the physically unable to perform list with an ankle injury, essentially turning his holdout into a “hold-in.” He’s been at the facility working out alongside teammates, but has not participated in any on-field work. After practices, he’s walked down to the fields to sign autographs for fans.
McLaurin — a face of Washington’s NFL franchise through losing seasons, league- and federal-led investigations into the team and its previous owner, two name changes and a turnstile of quarterbacks — has led the team in receiving yards since 2019, when Washington selected him in the third round out of Ohio State.
Commanders WR Terry McLaurin has requested to be traded, per source.
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) July 31, 2025
McLaurin has not been specific about what he wants in a new deal, but he has indicated he wants to be paid in line with the league’s top receivers; nine wideouts earn at least $30 million a year. It’s plausible that McLaurin’s camp views DK Metcalf’s deal with the Steelers, which has an average annual value of $33 million, to be the floor for negotiations, or at least in the range of what the Commanders receiver should be earning.
McLaurin and Metcalf were both drafted in 2019, have both played 97 games and have similar production in multiple statistical categories.
The Commanders have not spoken publicly about the negotiations beyond saying they want to keep McLaurin on a long-term deal.
“Without a doubt, I think everybody in this building values Terry very much,” general manager Adam Peters said on the eve of training camp. “And we knew that coming in and we knew that even more after spending a year with him. In terms of where we’re at, we’ve had conversations recently and we will look to have some more conversations and we’re going to do everything we can in order to get a deal done.”
All indications to this point have been that the Commanders are not interested in trading McLaurin. But McLaurin’s age is a sticking point in negotiations. He will turn 30 on Sept. 15, which means a new deal would kick in the season he turns 31. A multi-year deal would take him into his mid-30s, an age when receivers have historically faced a sharp decline in their production and availability.
While McLaurin could argue his production and value to the Commanders, on and off the field, exceeds that of Metcalf, the Commanders can counter that Metcalf is nearly two years younger than McLaurin. The only receiver making $30 million a year who is older than 27 is Miami’s Tyreek Hill, who turned 31 in March.
Since 2010, only 16 receivers have topped 1,000 receiving yards in a season in which they were 31 or older by Sept. 1 of that year, according to TruMedia.
This story will be updated.
(Photo: Nic Antaya / Getty Images)
